


The Afterlife and Times of Vincent Dodge

by fleshnbloodskeletons



Category: OC - Fandom, Original Work, the afterlife and times of vincent dodge
Genre: Adventure, Contemporary Fantasy, F/M, Gen, Long Form, Romance, Supernatural - Freeform, Zombie, new england aesthetic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:42:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleshnbloodskeletons/pseuds/fleshnbloodskeletons
Summary: Jackie Bennett is your average everyday 25 year old living in upstate New York-- she deals with heartache, rent, terrible jobs, and small-town shenanigans while living with her grandmother in their townhouse apartment, while also practicing necromancy and witchcraft in her spare time--oh, and her roommate is a zombie from the Victorian era, by the name of Vincent Dodge. She isn't sure how her life could possibly get any weirder.
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first, preliminary chapter to the story to set up some important key events before we really dive into the meat and potatoes. Think of it as a kind of... appetizer. Much more to come!

Tonight’s the night, Jackie thought to herself. The full moon was in full swing, the air was crisp and absolutely tingling with the bitter, musky scent of dead leaves and loam. For a decade now she’d been practicing witchcraft, specifically the necromantic arts, and after a full year now of reviving dead mice and rabbits (and one very happy golden retriever), she was ready to try her hand at the most challenging, and arguably controversial ritual in the old spellbooks.  
Bringing a human corpse back to life.  
Now of course, this would be no easy task. Human bodies don’t just leave themselves lying around for the taking like animals do, and breaking into a morgue was both illegal and dangerous. Not to mention one would run the risk of bringing back someone recently dead, and therefore recognizable to the public-- no, the key would be to pick someone long since deceased, someone who wouldn’t be missed, and who would prove useful or at the very least interesting for the necromancer in question to hold as their thrall. And Jackie had just the right person in mind.  
Jackie lived with her grandmother in a tiny town in New York called Swellake Hollow, which was known primarily for its one impressive feature: an old colonial estate by the name of Eastglen, which was (reportedly) haunted by the Unlucky Sons of Vincent Dodge. It was along the lines of places like Tarrytown and Salem. One inciting historical incident was enough to fuel an entire town’s economy based on tourism alone, and the residents of the little village knew exactly how to play their audiences like a fiddle. Every October, the streets flooded with kitchsy roving packs of tourists, meandering along the thin cobbled streets on their way to the month-long festival held at the estate. It was run by the town’s historical society, and aimed to be the best autumnal festival in the northeastern states, and by god, they did a damn fine job of it.  
From the cornfield mazes and fresh fair food to the reenactments and spooky ghost tours, the whole thing really was quite a comfy and well respected tradition, and one that Jackie enjoyed profusely ever since she was a child. However this year she sought to make this year’s festival extra special.  
The Dodge family had owned the estate going back to the 1760s, and in the middle of the 19th century, Vincent Dodge and his family took over ownership of the place, bringing with him his three sons.  
According to the old town legends, the Dodge family was cursed with horrible luck and misfortune, and all three sons died not long after moving into the estate. Robert, the eldest, died in a fire that consumed the estate’s old chapel, leaving behind his widow and two daughters. Stephen, the middle child, contracted syphilis and perished a slow and painful death abroad after fleeing from his father’s wrath when it was revealed he sired an illegitimate child with a maid under his parents’ employ, and finally there was Vincent Junior, the youngest, a sickly young man who wasted away under his parents’ foul neglect in a tiny bedroom in the house’s grand mansion, forgotten and left to die alone.  
Truly tragic.

Jackie knew the legends like the back of her hand, she’d spent many an afternoon in her childhood walking through the house with their guided tours, to the point where she could point out where the tour guides changed up the monologues or where objects were moved, cleaned, or replaced. The Eastglen mansion was really like a second home to her, and it all the more solidified in her mind why she was determined to make tonight’s dark matter count.  
She stood in front of her full body mirror, shivering with anticipation. She had on a long, baggy hoodie that obscured most of her body, and a black wool beanie to keep her short black hair in place. No jewelry or accessories tonight besides the obsidian and gold clover pendant that she always wore around her neck, for luck.  
She took a deep breath, pulling her backpack onto her shoulder. Inside was her spellbook, a careful arrangement of herbs, minerals and spices, some animal bones and teeth, and a tin of altoids. Everything she needed for the ritual.  
She checked her phone for the time and saw with a jolt of adrenaline it was 10:00. Two hours to midnight, two hours before it was time to perform the ritual.   
She took a deep breath, jittering with excitement, and started off, lighting skipping down the stairs two at a time and breathlessly darting out the back door. Her grandmother was already asleep, and she was too old to be out this late, but Jackie was eager to prove to her that she had the chops to take on intensive spells like this. After all, her grandmother was the witch who taught her the earliest and simplest of revival rituals, how to bring back overripe fruit or cause dried logs to sprout new leaves. This would be a true test of Jackie’s apprenticeship, and she only had one shot-- the harvest moon was tonight, and was required for a necromantic spell of this magnitude.  
She jogged up the silent street, noticing with some worry that the sky was beginning to swirl in dark steely grey clouds around the glistening full moon that loomed brightly over the sleepy landscape. The forecast app told her it was expected to rain heavily later that night and she deflated a little bit, hoping it would at least hold out until the ritual was completed.  
Though the strong scent of pre-rain that washed over the quiet village was comforting, nonetheless.  
She quickly came up over the hill that crested before the estate’s house grounds. Behind the house and beyond the small walled-in rose garden there was an old family graveyard with all the Dodge family and their ilk buried there in peace. Or whatever peace they could attain after such miserable lives. This was her destination.  
She stepped softly into the cemetery grounds, and immediately noticed how quiet it was here. The rustling wind and leaves were suspiciously absent in this place, the usual chitter of insects and animals in the brush fell silent.   
There weren’t too many graves here, really only maybe a dozen or so, with many of them old and starting to lean or collapse, crumbling back into the dirt.   
Jackie dropped her bag in a corner of the lot and paused, looking for the shovel and gloves she’d stowed away the night before. She knew the estate did have 24-hour security, and turning on a flashlight at this time of night, even for a moment, could get her busted.  
“Aha,” she muttered, grabbed the tool and swinging it over her shoulder before stepping over to the correct grave, marked with a small stone placed right on top of it. She traced her fingers along the worn surface, feeling the engraved letters-- V. F. D.   
She gripped the shovel in her hands tightly, starting to feel a bit apprehensive. She’d never robbed a grave before, even if for the noble cause of returning its inhabitants to life, and it was a bit of a daunting task. Nevertheless, she steeled herself, and plunged the shovel into the soft earth.   
The process was long, and tedious, and fraught with pauses and jumps when a leaf blew onto her back, or a car door slammed in the distance.   
Inch by inch, foot by foot, she dug deep into the ground anticipating the moment she would strike the casket beneath. Nearly 90 minutes later, her arms aching and forehead dripping with sweat, the shovel hit the ground with a hollow thunk.   
Her heart caught in her throat and she frantically dug around the edges of the coffin, dropping to her knees and digging into the earth with her hands. The wood was rotted and soft, and she braced her feet just above the lid to avoid falling through.  
The next ten minutes or so she spent roughly yanking and scraping the coffin up and out of the hole, slowly and carefully. She was grateful the ground wasn’t yet frozen and the soft loamy dirt was so forgiving, for it made her terrible job all the easier.  
She carefully maneuvered the coffin up and out of the gravesite, a chill running up her spine when she heard the contents shift and roll over with the shift in physics.  
The coffin was massive when she got a better look at it, scrambling out of the hole as well and looking down as her handiwork.  
“Now, Colonel Dodge,” she whispered, “we’ll see what you think of what’s become of your estate.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackie performs a ritual and it rains a lot

Jackie lugged the coffin down the hill and out of the graveyard, to a small spot she cleared the night before, the perfect place for a late night resurrection. The wind was starting to pick up, and she noticed the darkening clouds looming over to the east, threatening to obscure the brilliantly bright full moon. She shivered a bit and stepped up the paced, dragging the moldy pine box to the very center of the clearing.  
The runes were already in place-- she’d been preparing for this night for days now, after all, and she made sure that everything was carefully in place before bringing the corpse into the picture. She didn’t need to waste any more time setting up when it was already so close to midnight.

She carefully positioned the coffin in the very center of the runes, adjusting it until it was just so. Her mind was racing to make sure she was doing everything properly, as well as swimming with adrenaline. She’d spent her entire life learning about Colonel Vincent Dodge, the stoic and stonefaced patriarch of Eastglen estate, and now she would have the chance to speak to him in the flesh, to ask him about his life and times, show him what’s become of his glorious stately mansion.

She dug in her backpack and took out the assorted bones and herbs she’d taken with her and carried them over to the coffin, taking a deep breath and carefully arranging them into the precise pattern she’d rehearsed so many times. The raven’s skull at the top, the vulture’s claw at the bottom, the cat’s teeth in the center, with the nightshade and dried holly berries surrounding them in a wreath.

Her heart was pounding, hands shaking a little bit as she stepped back, kneeling to retrieve her spellbook while a distant but powerful peal of thunder roared in the distance. She jumped at the sound and worriedly looked at the sky. The moon was still shining bright but the clouds were beginning to encircle it, the wind really starting to pick up as well. She didn’t have much time, the lunar rays were imperative to the ritual.

She fumbled to her feet and flipped to the dog-eared page in the back where the incantation was neatly written in her grandmother’s miniscule script. Jackie’s mouth was dry as she ran down the short verses, reaching into her back pocket for the zippo lighter there. She flicked it on, noticing her breath fogging up into a sparse cloud as she gasped in the cold. She felt a raindrop fall onto the top of her head and she took a shaky breath, staring at the words in front of her. This was it. The lord of Eastglen estate would live again this night.

She stiffened her back, holding the light close to the paper to illuminate the page, and began to whisper, concentrating on both the spell and the offerings at once, just like her grandmother had taught her.

“By the Light of Sister Moon, on this night of blackest black,  
I bid thee bones before me to bend, to break, to crack,  
I bid thine spirit return from the void of death to call  
I bid thee gods of old grant me my promised Thrall  
One Corpse to command as eyes, ears, and hands  
For one moon’s cycle shalt thee be my right-hand-man.”

As she spoke, she felt the wind grow stronger, almost gale-force it seemed, whipping her face and threatening to carry the book right out of her hands.  
The Runes around her on the ground began to softly glow with an ethereal light, a sort of mellow greenish color, slowly growing brighter as she recited the incantation. The offerings on the coffin lid rattled and shook, smoke beginning to curl up from them and embers shining as they began to burn away as if consumed by an invisible but hungry flame.

As she spoke the final words of the spell, the coffin itself began to violently rock from side to side, and from the runes on the floor wispy green ghostly arms rose from the loamy earth, accompanied by the faintest of moans that seemed to come from the very earth itself.

Jackie’s heart was pounding in her ears, she felt both burning hot and chillingly cold at the same time. Her hands were clammy and she dropped the book and lighter, putting out the only warmth around her and drenching her in darkness.

The rain was starting in earnest now, the listing drops had evolved into a full-fledged storm, and she ducked under a large hydrangea bush to keep dry, her eyes still trained on the supernatural event underway in the clearing.

The wispy green arms had pried off the coffin lid and snaked into the box itself, illuminating it with an eerie glow as they writhed around in whatever remains of the Colonel were left. Jackie was breathing hard, eyes watering with anticipation. She almost felt a little sick. She prayed she’d performed the ritual correctly and he turned out...correct. Her grandmother warned her of incomplete necromancy spells that left the corpse in question without skin or only half-revived, split down the middle like a butchered steer. She shivered.

Suddenly, a figure jolted upright from the coffin, shoulders slumped, head rolling forward onto its chest. The wispy, whispering arms writhed around it almost tenderly, the wind and rain blustering about its hair and tattered clothes. Jackie licked her lips and crept out from behind the bush further, trying to get a better look at the Colonel-- just to be sure he came out alright…

The wispy arms ran once more along the seated corpse, lolling its head around before snaking back into the ground from whence they came, the last of their presence remaining but a quiet, unearthly laughter that faded as quickly as it had appeared.

The rain was torrenting down now and Jackie was hardly able to make out the figure before her. A crack of thunder sent her stumbling back onto her butt in the now muddy ground, and she yelped-- suddenly alerting the man in the coffin.

He suddenly, shakily, stood up, and she stared with terrified awe at his towering stature. She knew the Colonel was said to have been tall, but this was something else entirely. He was rail-thin, with sloped shoulders and big awkward hands that shakily reached up and brushed the water and hair from his face.

“C-Colonel…?” She whispered hoarsely, her voice vanishing under pressure. The figure tilted its head and one long spindly arm reached up and rubbed its head. She pulled herself to her feet, taking a tentative step closer. After all, no matter what, the corpse was under her control, as her thrall. If he caused her any unwanted harm, all she had to do was command the spell to break, and he would return to dust once more.  
“Mr. Vincent D-dodge?”  
This seemed to spark something, because the man stepped awkwardly out of the coffin, tripping on the rotten wood and stumbling to his knees. He paused, heaving a little, and Jackie, desperate for any kind of light, pulled out her phone and flicked on the flashlight.

The rain obscured her vision a bit, but not enough to hide the dead man before her. He was wearing a torn and moldy dinner jacket and trousers and a stained shirt that must’ve been white when he was buried, and a tight grey vest and cravat now loosely tied around his thin neck. Not the clothes of a Colonel.  
She apprehensive shone the light into his face and her stomach churned. Where she expected to see the chisled, mature face of the respectable Colonel, with his dashing grey-streaked hair and regal eyes, was a gaunt, long face of a young man in his 20s, with long unkempt hair and sad green eyes surrounded by heavy purple circles. He looked dazed and confused, just as much as Jackie, and her turned to her, wobbling to his feet again. He braced his arms against his frail legs and let out a choked groan. Jackie stepped back, hardly believing what had happened. It couldn’t be. This was some cruel Joke. She’d dug up the grave of Vincent Dodge, and yet this-- this couldn’t be him…

“W-where...am...I?”  
The corpse spoke in a deep voice tainted with fear. Jackie swallowed hard as a another crack of thunder roared across the sky, the accompanying lightning illuminating the scene for a split second.  
“Eastglen...estate…” She said slowly, fumbling for her now soaked spellbook and backpack. She needed to snap out of this. If she ended the spell now, she could try again next month-- she didn’t need to deal with an unwanted corpse for the next month. She flipped frantically through the wet pages to find the cancelling incantation.

The corpse swayed in place in an eerily ghostlike manner and tightened his hands into fists. “Eastglen-- then...I’m still home? I’m-- where...How on earth did I get outside? S-stephen, if it’s you out here...it’s not….funny…” He wheezed, centuries old vocal cords readjusting to usage. He stumbled forward, looking around frantically. His eyes fell on the house over the hill, the foyer lights, as always, still on.

“The house,” he said softly, and awkwardly started off down through the yard towards it. Jackie, meanwhile, was panicking. The pages in the spellbook were too wet to flip now and she’d already torn two out by mistake and the ink was starting to run. She couldn’t risk destroying it further. She crammed it into her bag and scrambled after the corpse. 

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK,” she muttered to herself, straining to keep up with his long, elegant strides. “I can’t-- I can’t let him break into the house! I could be arrested!! Christ-- fuck, this night couldn’t possibly get any worse…”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sadboy hours, fellas

The two of them arrived at the mansion minutes later, Jackie hot on the corpse’s tail as he staggered up to the front door. She felt anxiety bubbling in her gut, worried the groundskeeper, who normally remained on-site all night to guard the estate, would quickly notice them, but to her (slight) relief, the door to the house was unlocked, and the corpse easily slipped inside. She followed suit, still apprehensive, but glad they were out of the rain.

She panted in the foyer, trying not to drip too much water on the rug, and slipped off her bag, stowing it in a corner quietly and creeping after the dead man. He was standing unevenly in the dimly lit hall, staring in awe around him as if he were looking at the Sistine Chapel. 

The foyer of Eastglen estate was a wide, high-ceilinged hallway and greeting area, once the place where the Colonel and his wife would meet their guests and prepare to go out on their weekend carriage rides, but now was where tourists would stand in line while they waited for the next tour guide to bring them through to the rest of the house. There were several posters and plaques on the walls with information about the family’s history and impact on the town placed around to keep one occupied during the wait, and an exit sign hooked up above the grand front door. For all intents and purposes, it looked quite the same as it did in its heyday in the 1850s, save for a few modern niceties and electrical installments.

“Mother?” The voice jolted Jackie and she remembered that the corpse was still there and very much aware of his surroundings. “Father? M-mama? Where IS everyone, blast it all-- this isn’t funny anymore! I beg of you all...Please, it’s Vincent!” He turned around slowly, like a lost dog, and awkwardly stumbled towards the grand staircase.

There was pain in his voice and Jackie felt a lump in her throat forming. She had a sick feeling she had raised a Mr. Vincent Dodge from the grave that night, but it was the wrong Vincent. It was the Colonel’s fourth and youngest son, Vincent Junior, the poor young man who died from neglect and illness on Christmas Eve when he was twenty-seven.  
She crept along behind him, not sure what to say, or even if she should say anything. She didn’t intend to cause this confusion and sorrow, but here she was, and she had to deal with the consequences.

Vincent strode up the stairs two at a time, his long spiderlike legs easily carrying him to the top in minutes. He traced his fingers along the carved maple paneling on the walls and stared up at the hanging chandelier in the second floor hallway. He said nothing more, seeming to realize he was alone in the house. What he thought that entailed, Jackie didn’t know, but she could tell he was trying to process what was going on. He strode from door to door, staring into each carefully sectioned-off room and, his shoulders sagging, arms limp. At the end of the hallway he reached the second flight of stairs that led to the third floor-- where his room was, and the attic.

The stairs were creaky and narrow and now well-worn after decades of tourists eagerly climbing them to see the fabled dungeon where the sickly Dodge son was kept locked away.

Jackie trailed further behind, watching Vincent’s ripped and worm eaten coattails flap out of side as he ascended the stairs, not sure what to do next. She knew she would have to end the spell and send his soul back to...wherever it came from, but she couldn’t do it here, or his dusty remains would fall into a pile in the middle of a public structure. She’d have to bring him outside somewhere where it would be easy to scatter them back into the earth.

She slowly went up the stairs, trying not to scare the corpse-man ahead of her, and paused at the top of the stairs. Vincent had not only opened the door to his old room, but go right in, carefully pushing the velvet rope dividers out of the way and stepping across the dust-laden rug. It was quite dark save for the dim overcast moonlight struggling to shine from behind the churning rainclouds and the eerie red glow of the fire escape sign in the hallway. 

Jackie flipped on the lighter again, giving the room some small amount of additional light, and slowly followed him into the room.

Vincent Dodge’s room was kept in pristine condition by the estate managers since it was such an attraction to the tourists. Everything from the old baby’s cradle, the doublewide bed where he’d actually died, the dressers with all his old clothes neatly folded and preserved, the toys and hairbrushes and pajamas-- it was all there on display to serve the public’s imagination, to feed the minds of those who sensationalized this poor man’s life for the sake of tourism.

Vincent stood silently, save for the slow and steady dripping of rainwater from his soaked clothes and hair. One hand was resting gently on the railing of the old wooden crib in the corner, the other hanging motionless at his side. His head was gently bowed. He looked almost like he was praying, or in remembrance of a passed loved one.

“Where...where did everyone go?” He said quietly, half to himself and half to Jackie.

She didn’t know how to respond.

His grip on the crib tightened and he turned, his face sorrowful. “Please. Miss. I know something is terribly, terribly wrong. I fell asleep not long ago, right here, in this very room-- it’s Christmas Eve, for God’s sake! I know not what happened between then and now, but it must be the work of some evil spirit or demon which seeks to torment me so because all I know has been turned on its head. My own house is full of strange objects, and void of its inhabitants! I’m-- I’m terribly frightened. I would like things to go back, please, help me. I just-- I just want to go back home...though I may be here already, it does not feel at all like home anymore.”

Jackie felt the blood drain from her cheeks as she watched this poor dead man spill his heart out, both of them sopping wet, and alone in a creaky old house.

She stepped forward meekly, feeling intense shame for what she’d brought upon him, and held up the lighter to better let them see eachother.

“Vincent,” she said slowly and firmly, her hands sweating. “I’m… I’m not sure how to tell you this, but… you’ve been...dead. For almost one hundred and ninety years.”

He paled, or would have, if he had any blood left in his sallow face. 

She took a deep breath and continued, trying to avoid looking into those tired, gentle eyes. “Your family. You mother, father, brothers. All dead. It’s the year 20xx. This house--your house-- it’s been turned into a museum. Eastglen Estate is under the jurisdiction of the township of Swellake Hollow, and has been for some time now.”

He stepped back, head shaking, and knocked into the crib, startling him. “God-- dear god, please. No. You can’t be serious, this is some phenomenal joke, some grand prank pulled on me by my brothers. Any moment they’ll all jump out. Everyone will be downstairs in the sitting room with the christmas tree and the candles lit. I don’t know who you are but I implore you to leave me be. Let me return to my family.”

Jackie sighed shakily and rubbed her eyes with her free hand. Thunder pealed outside again and the windows lit up with the crackling lightning as the rain sloughed against the rooftop.

She reached out and took Vincent’s hand, shuddering at the cold of his flesh.   
“What-- Miss! I-- release me! I demand you let go of me at once-- who ARE you? I’ll let my father know strange women are prowling about my chambers!”

She tugged on his hand, trying to pull him along back outside. “Just--please, Vincent. Come with me. I need to show you something. I--I’m going to bring you to your family.”

He softened, and a sense of relief seemed to wash over him, though he still walked with her stiffly and skeptically. “Miss, I must warn you-- my father IS an esteemed and powerful Colonel of Her Majestry’s armed forces! He owns this very estate and I can tell you if you’re planning any funny business, anything underhanded at all, I shall have him call the authorities and have you arrested promptly.”

Jackie said nothing but guided Vincent through the empty house and back out the foyer door, careful to check that the groundskeeper was still nowhere in sight.

The rain was still pouring down, though the thunder seemed further away. She led Vincent awkwardly across the lawn, with him needing to nearly double over to keep up with her pace and shorter stature. 

“Miss, please, where are we--”

She stopped short as they entered the family’s small cemetery plot. Vincent straightened out, brushing his wet hair out of his face again, the vigor draining from his complexion again.

Jackie stepped aside for him to stride into the fenced-in yard. He passed by each grave, kneeling down at each and tracing the names with his fingers, squinting in the darkness, the only light coming from the occasional distant flash of lightning.

As he read the final tombstone, he seemed to break.

He sank to his knees in the dirt, arms limp at his sides, head slumped against the cold, wet stone. Jackie somberly approached and saw as the lightning lit up the sky yet again the worn inscription.

Here Lies Colonel Vincent Fitzwilliam Dodge I  
B. June 12, 1802  
D. August 3, 1868

And his beloved Wife  
Adelaide Katherine Dodge  
B. May 7, 1805  
D. December 30, 1874

The two of them were silent for a few minutes. Vincent was motionless, so much so one might confuse him for an ordinary corpse, but Jackie knew better, and knew bitterly that if hadn’t been dead, he would be crying.


	4. Vincent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A peek into the past.

Colonel and Mrs. Dodge’s youngest son, Vincent, had always been a sickly young man. From childhood, birth even, he’d been fraught with illness and frailty. Whether he was kept bedridden with lingering coughs and fevers in the winter or struggling to keep up with his boisterous older brothers in the summer, he never seemed to ever fully reach a healthy state. Despite his weak constitution, he was always a chipper boy, and was more than happy to spend his time engulfed in a book or poring over his father’s collection of maps and natural specimens. His mother often said, with a mild, wistful twinge in her voice, that Vincent was her greatest test in life, and spent her every waking hour ensuring that he was taken care of to the best of her capabilities. 

From bringing in every doctor she could find in the province (and even hiring a few from further away), to trying every popular treatment she learned of from her circle of friends and relations, to simply dedicating a hefty portion of her luxury time attending to her son, she expended extensive energy towards Vincent, and was known to tear up each year as he proved strong enough to see another birthday come and go.

Colonel Dodge was a far more distant parent, and from the moment the family’s chief physician had taken him and his wife aside and informed that them that Vincent had been unlikely to even live past his first decade, he had removed himself further and further from the child, emotionally and mentally. While Mrs. Dodge’s attention to Vincent bordered on the manic at times, Colonel Dodge sometimes seemed to forget he even had a fourth son. When he was asked of his opinions or concerns regarding him, he would speak stiffly and mechanically, reciting a string of preconceived remarks he kept memorized in his brain just for the occasion. “Yes, the poor boy. I pray that he might find a steady road to recovery, heaven knows he’s suffered enough already.” 

Colonel Dodge was a retired official in the infantry, having suffered a terrible musket wound to his left shoulder during a skirmish, which left the limb almost entirely paralyzed from then on. He’d been sent home with a hefty pension, and received his inheritance upon the sudden death of his father a few years later-- part of which being the lovely Eastglen Estate, in the quiet valleys of the northeastern United States. It was decided that the family would prefer to move across the sea to this newly acquired estate from their smaller home in the dirty streets of London, and in 1841, they shipped to America, hoping to find new happiness there. 

And happiness they did find; the elder boys, Robert and Stephen (Samuel, the second youngest, remained in Britain since he’d joined the navy and was unable to leave his post), were thrilled with the new home, as young boys blossoming into men would be upon the introduction of a rich new place to explore, to hunt in, and to conquer. The estate had a large patch of land attached to it, nearly two dozen acres of woods and fields, resting on the eastern shore of a little lake and the rivers that flowed down from it. It was idyllic and calm, and the family prospered there.

All except Vincent.   
The boy was 14 when they moved abroad, and still as sickly as ever. His mother had anticipated that the fresh air and clean new environments would help improve his health, but to no avail. By age 21, Vincent seemed to have acquired a permanent corpse-like sallowness to his face and deep circles under his eyes. His mother would often bemoan this and try to hide it with a subtle application of some rouge, to which Vincent himself would laugh and tell her not to bother, and to save the makeup for his funeral (a morbid joke, but then again morbidity was not unfamiliar to him, and he found that finding humor in his circumstances helped ease both his and his mother’s apprehensions.)

Vincent was exceptionally tall, which seemed to surprise many people when he made his rare appearances at socials or holidays, standing a good few inches above even his father, who stood solidly at six feet tall. He had gentle, perpetually tired eyes, and an overbite that caused his frontmost teeth to sit gauntly on his thin lower lip, with pronounced cheekbones and a sharp chin, giving him the rather macabre but fitting appearance of a skeleton. 

Regardless of his unfortunate looks and poor health, Vincent was a cheerful young man, and was thrilled to engage with anyone he stumbled upon for company. He adored parties (when he was strong enough to attend) and would try his best to flirt with the young women who came to stay, many of which brought in by Mrs. Dodge herself in an effort to find matches for her sons. He was not disliked, but his uncertain future and lack of inheritance as the youngest son of a retired colonel left him the most undesirable of the Dodge boys, and he accepted this fact with poise and complacency, happy to relish in the fleeting joys of social interaction.  
If Vincent harbored any anger or frustration towards his physical weakness, he never showed it, nor voiced it. He was quite happy with his lot in life, and frequently remarked how grateful that he’d been blessed enough to live so long as it was.   
By age 25, however, his health declined again, and Vincent was left nearly permanently bedridden, with his mother and peers coming up to his bedroom to visit him rather than vice versa. By December of his 27th year, he was barely able to sit up on his own.

They weren’t sure what it was that consumed him in the end-- a terrible combination of persistent fever, a deep wet (sometimes bloody) cough, sneezing and nausea. By the end most of his family was worried to visit him for fear of contracting whatever it was, and Vincent was left with his nurse and the family doctor to look after him.

At 4:13 in the morning on December 24th, 1854, Vincent Fitzwilliam Dodge the Second expired in his bed, alone and cold. His nurse would find him a few hours later that morning and the news would break to the rest of the family on what was already a far more sober holiday than usual.

The mood at the house following the announcement was decidedly and understandably somber, a stark contrast to the festivities in progress that filled the days prior with song and the nights with the smell of wood fires and seasonal feasts. No one was surprised. They had all known it was coming, and arrangements had already been made in case the worst came to fruition swifter than anticipated-- a grave had been prepared in the family’s cemetery lot behind the rose garden for months now-- but of course no amount of preparation in the mind and in the home could steel one against the shock and sorrow that follows a family death.


End file.
